With Reliance Jio’s 4G services being widely adopted by consumers, the company is now focusing on improving broadband services with JioFiber home broadband. The company has been teasing the service for a while but hasn’t revealed many details. In response to a Twitter user of the @JioCare handle, Reliance Jio’s customer service team said the JioFiber Preview offer would be launched in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Ahmedabad, Jamnagar, Surat, and Vadodara.
Several users who had early access to the JioFiber Preview offering have tweeted about the service. One such user in Mumbai had reported speeds of between 70 Mbps and 100 Mbps on the 1 Gbps connection in January. The wired JioFiber connections aren’t just for home users, though, as Mukesh Ambani had said in the 2016 AGM that the multi-gigabyte service would also launch for enterprises, covering India’s top 100 cities.
While the service is said to be free for the first 90 days, users will be required to pay a one-time, refundable amount of Rs. 4,000-4,500 for the JioFiber router.
IRCTC starts a cash-on-delivery service for train tickets IRCTC is the place to book train tickets in India. It has now introduced a pay-on-delivery service that allows passengers to book and pay for train tickets online at the time of delivery. MThe cost is said to be Rs. 90 plus sales tax for transactions up to Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 120 plus tax for transactions over Rs. 5,000. Ove hopes that by delivering access to the consumer’s doorstep and offering the cash on delivery (CoD) option, consumers who book through travel agents will ease the switch to the online medium.
After Cognizant and Wipro, Now Infosys to Fire Employees In a new development, Infosys will be handing out pink briefs to hundreds of mid- and senior employees as it conducts a semi-annual performance review amid a challenging business environment. Interestingly, Infosys has said it will hire 10,000 Americans over the next two years and open four US centers as it seeks counter-action by the US to tighten visa standards. An Infosys spokesperson has not disclosed the number of people that will be affected, although reports say the number will be hundreds.
Windows 10 on 500 Million Active Devices, Microsoft Reveals at Build 2017 Microsoft announced at its ongoing Build 2017 developer conference that the Windows 10 operating system is running on 500 million active devices per month. This was a significant jump from 100 million devices in September when the company unveiled 400 million monthly active devices for the operating system. The monthly active users of commercial Office 365 now stand at 100 million, Microsoft said at Build 2017. The world’s largest software maker also said the Cortana Skills Kit for developers is now in public preview (US only); The Skills Kit allows developers to create bots for the Cortana channel of the Microsoft Bot Framework.
OnePlus 5 Beats Samsung Galaxy S8+ Snapdragon 835 Variant, Leaked Benchmark Score Suggests A leaked GeekBench screenshot suggests the upcoming flagship will outperform two other smartphones equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC. The OnePlus 5 itself got an impressive score of 1963 (single-core) and a huge 6687 score (multi-core). In terms of single-core performance, the phone only lagged behind Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus and the Exynos 8895 processor variant of the Samsung Galaxy S8+ smartphone.
Asus ZenFone Go 5.5 (ZB552KL) with a 13-megapixel camera launched for Rs. 8,499
The new Asus ZenFone Go (ZB552KL) with a 13-megapixel rear camera and 4G LTE has been launched in India exclusively on Amazon. The new Asus smartphone costs Rs. 8,499, but the company has yet to release its availability details. ZenFone Go (ZB552KL) runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with ZenUI 3.0 skin on it and has a 5.5-inch HD display, quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB internal storage, support for storage expansion up to 256 GB and a 3000 mAh battery. The 13-megapixel camera on the back of the new smartphone is supported by a dual-LED real-tone flash, while the front camera has a resolution of 5 megapixels.
Aircel’s new app-only offer for prepaid users announced its new data and calling package on Wednesday, giving 1GB of 3G data at Rs. 76 with a validity of 10 days. Customers get 100MB of extra data with each pack top-up of Rs. 50 value or more. The company has also announced another app-only recharge offer, where customers will get full talk time on a top-up of Rs. 86. All of this is only valid on the condition that you use the Aircel app when charging your account.
SoftBank Posts More Than $1.4 Billion Loss from Indian Investments Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group said on Wednesday it has recorded losses on investments amounting to $1.4 billion, or more than Rs. 9,000 crores, for 2016-17 in Indian startups like Snapdeal and Ola. SoftBank Group (SBG) recorded a loss from financial instruments at FVTPL (fair value through profit or loss) of JPY 160,419 million in its consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended March 2017, SoftBank said in a statement.
Government Issues Guidelines To Restrict Online Child Sexual Abuse Materials To curb Child Sexual Abuse Online Materials (CSAM), the Union Department of Electronics and Information Technology on Tuesday banned all Internet service providers (ISPs ) requested to facilitate the distribution and transfer of such content in India by adopting and implementing Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) resources on or before July 31. IWF has been adopted by many countries and is already being implemented by leading online service providers in other jurisdictions. In December 2016, the central government established an Interministerial Committee (IMC) to recommend specific solutions to tackle the issue of such material online.
Amazon India’s New Experience Zone to Present Kindle and Fire TV Stick Although Amazon is best known as a marketplace to sell products from others, the company also has its own devices, such as the Kindle ebook reader and the recently launched Fire TV Stick. The first Amazon Experience Zone opened in Bengaluru to increase the visibility of Amazon’s devices. The company plans to set up several such experience zones across the country, though the exact cities and locations are yet to be finalized.
Amazon Great Indian Sale Begins May 11: Five Tips To Make Sure You Get The Best Deals
In other news: Amazon India’s clean-up of US TV shows continues, and this time, it’s the new show called American Gods. Unlike The Grand Tour, Amazon India will offer two versions of American Gods episodes, one censored and the other untouched. However, you will have to manually search for the uncut version, as Amazon will only advertise the modified version to account for Indian “cultural sensitivities”.
Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom Now Available For Purchase The Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom made its debut at CES this year, and now the phone is finally available in the US for $329 (about Rs. 21,300). The Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom smartphone will also be priced lower than the previously advertised price of $399 (approximately Rs. 25,800) in the US. Notably, the company has launched the 3 GB RAM + 32 GB built-in storage variant in the US, while the 128 GB built-in storage variant with 4 GB RAM was launched in China earlier this year. The highlight of the Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom is the dual rear camera, with the second 12-megapixel rear camera boasting a 2.3x optical zoom.
In other launches, Coolpad has launched the Cool Play 6 with dual rear cameras for CNY 1,499 (approximately Rs. 8,900) in China. The phone has a metal frame, fingerprint scanner, and a dual camera setup. Furthermore, Coolpad reportedly built an “intelligent temperature control technology” that ensures that the smartphone does not heat up during intense gaming sessions.
